Board Members

Jella Benner-Heinacher joined DSW in 1991 and was appointed Managing Director in 1994.

She is primarily responsible for: Euroshareholders in Brussels; Corporate Governance issues in commissions such as Baums- and Cromme-Commission, DSW’s participation in the legislation procedure at a national and international level, Speaking at Annual General Meetings such as SAP, Metro, Henkel and KarstadtQuelle

She is an attorney having studied in France, Switzerland and the U.S..Jella Benner-Heinacher is also member of the Stock Exchange Board in Düsseldorf and member of the Take-over Committee (at the BaFin) in Frankfurt. Besides she is a member of the supervisory boards of TUI AG, K + S AG, A.S. Creation AG.

Vincent Kaufmann

Vincent Kaufmann (1980) has been the CEO of Ethos Foundation and of Ethos Services since June 2015. He has been member Ethos Services’ management in charge of investment since 2011 and deputy CEO since 2013. Vincent Kaufmann joined Ethos in 2004 as a corporate governance analyst, later becoming a senior and deputy head of corporate governance. He also participates in Ethos’ dialogue with the management of Swiss listed companies in the field of corporate governance and sustainability. Since 2014, he has been a member of the supervisory board of the proxy voting consultant Proxinvest (Paris) as a representative of the shareholder Ethos Services.

Vincent Kaufmann, a Swiss certified Expert for Accounting and Controlling since 2009, holds a Master’s degree in Business Economics from the University of Geneva (2004).

Pierre-Henri Leroy

Pierre-Henri Leroy, is a graduate of the Institut d’Etudes Politiques of Paris and of the Paris University Law School, an MBA Graduate from Columbia University in New York, is the founder and president of Proxinvest.

After serving with The French Industrial Development Agency in the United States, he was associated with international chemical groups Hoechst-Roussel-Uclaf in Paris and Frankfurt as International Treasurer from 1976 to 1980, and CdF Chimie, as Finance Director and Treasurer from 1981 to 1985.

In 1985, he joined Bankers Trust as a Vice-President and introduced new financial products in France, such as interest rate swaps, preference floating rate shares, debt to equity swaps. In 1990, he was appointed Director of Funding of Crédit Lyonnais, in charge of managing liabilities, supervising twenty listed affiliates of the banking group and Chairman of Crédit Lyonnais Finance Ltd. (Guernsey).

He resigned from Crédit Lyonnais in 1995 to create Proxinvest. He participated to the 1995 founding session of the ICGN in Washington D.C. Since 2001, he is a member of the French AMF Committee on Individual Investors Protection. He has been a member of the board of directors of ECGS since 2001.

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